ESTHER ASKS KING AHASUERUS (HER HUSBAND) NOT TO KILL THE JEWS ( HER PEOPLE): “Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to … kill ... all the Jews …. Esther … pleaded with the king … to put an end to the evil plan…. Then the king extended the gold scepter to Esther and she arose and stood before him. ‘If it pleases the king,’ she said, ‘and if he regards me with favor and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches … devised … to destroy the Jews …. For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?’ King Ahasuerus replied …. ‘Now write another decree in the king’s name ... grant[ing] the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves ….’” (Esther 3: 13; 8: 3 – 11)

MOSES AND THE BURNING BUSH: "Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.... God called to him from within the bush.... The Lord said, 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.... So now, go I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt'." (Exodus 3: 1-10)

WISDOM OF SOLOMON: “Now two prostitutes came to king [Solomon]. One of them said, ‘…During the night this woman’s son died …. So she … took my son … [and] put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast.’… Then the king said, ‘bring me a sword [and] … gave an order, ‘Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.’ The woman whose son was alive … said to the king, ‘please … give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!’… Then the king gave his ruling. ‘Give the living baby to the first woman…. She is his mother’.” (1 Kings 3: 16-27)

MOSES PRESENTS THE TEN COMMANDMENTS: “ Moses summoned all Israel and said: ‘Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them…. These are the commandments the Lord proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness …. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me’.” (Deuteronomy 5: 1-22)

ISSAC AND REBEKAH AND THEIR SONS ESAU AND JACOB: “When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, ‘… Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like … so that I may give you my blessing before I die.’ Now Rebekah was listening [and] … said to her son Jacob, … ‘Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.’… She also covered Jacob’s hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then … Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing’.” (Genesis 27: 1–19)

THE TABERNACLE (PORTABLE TENT OF MEETING): “Moses said to the whole Israelite community, ‘All who are skilled among you are to come and make everything the Lord has commanded: the tabernacle with its tent and its covering … the table with its poles and all its articles and the bread of the Presence; the lampstand … the altar of incense … the curtain for the doorway at the entrance to the tabernacle; the altar of burnt offering … the bronze basin with its stand; the curtains of the courtyard … and the curtain for the entrance to the courtyard; the tent pegs for the tabernacle and for the courtyard, and their ropes ...’.” (Exodus 35: 4-18)

Pictures of Carvings of Images from the Old Testament by Calvin Logue

NOAH’S ARK: "Noah was a righteous man ... and he walked with God.... Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.... So God said to Noah, 'I am going to put an end to all people .... So make yourself an ark of cypress wood .... Make a roof for it .... Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life ....'" (Genesis 6: 9- 17)

DANIEL INTERPRETING WRITING ON KING BELSHAZZAR’S WALL: “King Belshazzar gave a great banquet …. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale …. So Daniel was brought before the king, and the king said to him, … ‘If you can read this writing and tell me what it means, you will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around your neck, and you will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.’ Then Daniel answered the king, ‘You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing … and tell him what it means…. Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians’.” (Daniel 5: 1-30)

TOWER OF BABEL: "Now the whole world had one language and a common speech…. They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves …. ’ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other’.” (Genesis 11: 1-8)

CAIN AND ABLE: “ Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering -- fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast…. Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field.’ While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.” (Genesis 4: 1-8)

NAOMI, HER DAUGHTERS-IN-LAW ( RUTH AND ORPAH), AND BOAZ: “… [ there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live … in … Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion…. Now … Naomi’s husband died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth…. Both Mahlon and Kilion also died …. Naomi and her daughters-in-law … [returned] to the land of Judah. Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, ‘Go back, each of you, to … Moab…. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her… [and] replied, ‘… Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God’.… Naomi said to her, ‘My daughter, I must find a home for you …. Now Boaz … tonight … will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor…. When he lies down … go and uncover his feet and lie down’.” (Ruth 1: 1 – 17; 3: 1-4)

JOB: “When Job’s three friends … heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out … to … comfort him…. ‘The Almighty has terrified me’, Job stated, ’yet I am not silenced by the darkness …. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul…. Man … springs up like a flower and withers away …. I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth…. My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you’.” (Job: 2: 11; 23: 16-17; 7: 11; 14: 1-2; 19: 25; 42: 5)

JEREMIAH COMMUNICATES GOD’S MESSAGE AT THE GATE OF THE TEMPLE: “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ‘Stand at the gate of the Lord’s house and there proclaim this message: Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. … Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, ‘This is the temple of the Lord ….’ If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors forever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless’.” (Jeremiah 7: 1-8)

SAMSON: “The hair on Samson’s head began to grow again after it had been shaved…. Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled …saying, ‘Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands.’… They shouted, ‘Bring out Samson to entertain us.’… When they stood him among the pillars, Samson said to the servant who held his hand, ‘Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.’. .. Then Samson prayed to the Lord, … ‘Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.’ Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other …. Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it.” (Judges 16: 22-30)

DAVID PLAYS THE LYRE FOR SAUL: “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him…. Saul’s attendants said … ‘Search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.’… Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, ‘Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.’… Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” (1 Samuel 16: 14-23)

JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS IN EGYPT: “When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, ‘…Go down there and buy some for us, so that we may live and not die.’ Then ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt…. Now Joseph was the governor of the land, the person who sold grain to all its people…. As soon as Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger and spoke harshly to them. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked. ‘From the land of Canaan,’ they replied, ‘to buy food’.” {Genesis 42: 1– 7)

GARDEN OF EDEN: "Now the Lord God had planted a garden ... in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.... And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ....' Then the Lord God made a woman .... When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good ... and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband ... and he ate it." (Genesis 2: 8 - 3:6, New International Version )

DEBORAH, BARAK (HER MILITARY COMMANDER), AND TWO CITIZENS IN CONFLICT: “Now Deborah, a prophet … held court under the Palm of Deborah … and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. She sent for Barak ... and said to him, ‘the Lord … commands you: Go, take with you ten thousand men … up to Mount Tabor.’… Barak said to her, ‘If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.’ ‘Certainly I will go with you,’ said Deborah. ‘But … the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.’… At Barak’s advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword …. On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites.” (Judges 4: 4-24)

MOSES SPEAKS TO PHARAOH THRU HIS BROTHER AARON: “Now when the Lord spoke to Moses in Egypt, he said to him, ‘I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I tell you.’ But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?’…Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country’.” (Exodus 6: 28 – 7: 2)

THE PASSOVER: “Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the door frame…. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down’.” (Exodus 12: 21-23)

Old Testament

GOD CALLS ABRAHAM: "The Lord had said to Abram [Abraham], 'Leave your country ... and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation ....' So Abram left .... He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot ... and they set out for the land of Canaan ...." (Genesis 12: 1-5)